Bendable Media

Shure's new SE535 headphones fill your ears with crisp sound

There’s a certain serenity to listening to music. I’m not talking about having music playing in the background while you work or read (although I enjoy both), but just listening to music while you do nothing else. I did that a lot back in the day, as I’m sure most of us have. But it can be tough to find the time to just listen today, with kids, work and the non-stop array of errands and tasks that need our attention.

Well, I’m starting to carve out time to just listen and it’s been easier than I thought. That’s partly because I’ve been trying to write this review of Shure’s newest high-end earphones (music required!) and the sound is so good, so rich and so fills my ears, that it’s hard to concentrate on the words. I must stop and listen, so much so that this piece should have been finished two days ago.

The Shure SE535 Sound Isolating Earphones recently went on sale for, gasp, $499. Yes, that’s a price that makes one choke but if you can afford such a luxury, you will not be disappointed.

You hear tones in the music standard headphones and earphones tend to miss — the subtle touch of drummer’s cymbal, a tight bass line and a general crispness we often overlook in the age of digital music as background noise. This rich sound comes from what Shure calls “triple high-definition microDrivers,” which basically means each earphone includes a tweeter and dual woofers.

In non-audio terms, that means when you listen to a song with a wind-instrument, such as flute, you’ll hear the distinct whistling sound as if you were in an orchestral hall. Really, it’s that good. I’ve been closing my eyes often and just focusing on the music, which I’m sure is an odd entertainment for the people sitting near me in the coffee shops I often work from.

And no matter how close by those folks are sitting, or how high I crank the music (yes, I used crank and flute in consecutive paragraphs), they won’t hear my music. Have you ever been on a plane, bus or train and heard the music coming from the person next to you? Those people are listening to headphones that don’t isolate sound. The SE535′s do such a good job of isolating sound that I hear nothing around me — casual conversations or screaming babies — and only the music piped into my ears.

The Shure SE535 Sound Isolating Earphones are a follow-up to another fantastic set of Shure headphones, the SE530 model. Those also had a dedicated tweeter and dual woofers in each earpiece that put a room of sound straight into your ears. Those were the first headphones I really appreciated, as I was astounded at the dramatic difference in sound from what Apple provided with an iPod to what you can buy from a third-party company that specializes in sound.

But the SE530 model had a problem with the earphone casing that Shure has addressed very cleverly in the SE535 upgrade. Specifically, the casing surrounding the wires leading to the SE530 earphones ripped after awhile. They ripped because you needed to bend the casing to wrap the cords around your ears, so the earphones would fit snugly. If you listened to the SE530 earphones a lot — and you would if you spent $500 — you probably had this problem.

A detachable cable plugs straight into the earphone, solving a pricey problem

For the SE535 earphones, Shure used a detachable cable that plugs straight into the earphone. This does two things:

1. Allows you to replace just the cable should something happen.
2. Fixed a vexing problem that annoyed audiophiles with deep pockets. As Shure writes on its website, the detachable cable “enables easy replacement … extending the life of your investment.”

Shure ships the SE535 with a “comfort kit” that includes several types and sizes of foam cushions (sleeves) for humanity’s different ear sizes, headphone adapters for airplane seats and home receivers, plus a carrying case. The SE535 earphones do not include a built-in speaker for taking calls if you’re listening to music on a smartphone.

In case you’re interested, here is a list of the albums I’ve been listening to as I wrote this review. I’m not going to provide a music review — what, did you think you were reading Jim Derogatis’ blog? — but you can assume I’m fond of the bands below:

The New Pornographers, Together
Broken Bells, self titled
Florence + The Machine, Lungs (If you’ve never heard of this band, listen to “Hurricane Drunk.”)
Gorillaz, Plastic Beach
MGMT, Congratulations

Any suggestions?

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